Letting Go

Over the last few months, 

I have been learning how to loosen my grip on fear.

Not the kind that lives only in thought,
but the older kind—
fear that settles into the body,
quiet and watchful,
its roots reaching back to childhood.

I was a sensitive, shy child,
always reading the emotional weather of home.
I wanted to please, to keep the peace, to be good.
Safety felt earned through smallness,
through carefulness,
through survival.

Two great fears grew with me.

The first was the fear of losing a child—
a shadow that followed me for years
until heartbreak made it real,
forever changing the landscape of my heart.

The second fear lived within my body.
It came from childhood pain
that taught my nervous system to brace,
to expect harm,
to hold itself tightly against the world.

Eight years ago,
that fear began speaking through my knees.
Then, about a year ago,
it traveled deeper—
into my bladder and pelvis,
into the tender places I had learned to protect.

The last few months
have carried me through a dark and primal terrain
where pain and fear became almost indistinguishable,
as though my body was releasing
stories it had carried in silence for decades.

And yet beneath it all,
there has been a quiet invitation—

not to fight,
but to feel.

Not to harden,
but to soften.

To loosen my grip on old fear
and trust that what rises now
may finally be ready
to let go.